


The Ghosts of You

by Jester85



Series: The Ghost of You [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Recovery, Slow Burn, canon compliant (to a point)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:36:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jester85/pseuds/Jester85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More of me winding my way through Civil War, being mostly canon compliant with slightly more gay (which CW desperately needed).</p><p>I previously wrote two short one-shots of scenes from Civil War, which I've made part of the same series as this.</p><p>I'm not sure how long this is going to be (probably not uber-long, but I've said that before), but I know it goes beyond that totally unsatisfactory mid-credit scene.</p><p>Basically I'm having writer's block with my own sci-fi series, so I'm churning out a bunch of Stucky feels lately to at least be doing something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghosts of You

Steve felt it.  The guilt.  Weighing him down, pulling at him like gravity, trying to drag him back to earth even as the Quinjet shot into the clouds, leaving behind the smoking rubble of Leipzig Airport, one half of The Avengers who were now his enemies, the other half probably prisoners by now.

He felt like a coward, running away, abandoning loyal comrades.

Clint, who'd come out of retirement, left his wife and children behind.  Wanda, who'd left the "safe house", Tony had called it--Steve suppressed a bitter snort at that self-justifying title--even Scott Lang, whom he didn't really know but understood was an ex-con with a record a mile long, and had a daughter.  People who didn't even know him, who knew  _of_ him, coming out of the woodwork to help, without question, without even all the facts, because he was "Captain America", and they were ready and eager to place their faith in him.

Sam.  Always at his back, as loyal a friend as Bucky had been.

 _As Bucky still was,_ he admonished himself.

Bucky was strapped into the seat behind his, and Steve couldn't see his friend's face, but somehow he could feel the other man's brooding.  It matched with his own.  Even back in Brooklyn, they'd always been closely attuned to each other's moods.  Bucky had always been able to tell what he was thinking.

So it wasn't much of a surprise at all when Bucky's voice--low, gravelly, more toneless and serious than it had ever been back in the old days, weighed down by the same weariness Steve felt in the marrow of his bones--quietly rumbled behind him.

"What's going to happen to your friends?"

It was a question Steve could have happily gone all day without answering, but one he couldn't stop thinking about all the same.  

"Whatever happens....I'll take care of it."

He could almost feel Bucky's sad smile, with none of the glow it had once had that could light up a room.  "I...don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

And now this really wasn't a conversation Steve wanted to be having right now.  He shot a searching glance out the window, at the unchanging clouds floating by beyond, as if they held any answers for him.

"What you did all those years," he said slowly, choosing his words cautiously, "It wasn't you.  You didn't have a choice."

"I know,"  Bucky replied surprisingly readily, "But I still did it."

"HYDRA did it," Steve answered firmly.

"Steve," Bucky began, that softness in his voice when he said his name, but speaking with long-suffering exasperation, like explaining something to a child who didn't get it, "My hands.  My finger on the trigger.  My fist.  You can try to say I didn't do it, but we both know I did."

Steve twisted in his seat, turning his head just enough to see his friend in his peripheral vision.  "You were just their gun, Buck.  HYDRA pulled the trigger.  When I say it wasn't you, it's 'cause it wasn't  _you_.  I know you."

Bucky's mouth twisted up in a humorless semblance of a smile, and he always looked so damn sad.  "You knew James Barnes.  I'm not him."

"The hell you're not!" Steve snapped a little harder than he meant to.  "I watched you on the monitor in Berlin.  That 'doctor' or whatever the hell he is, he called you James and you said your name was Bucky."

Bucky turned his eyes to the window, staring at nothing in particular.  He looked forlorn, desperate.  "I thought that maybe I could be him.  I thought I had all HYDRA's shit out of my system.  But it's still there.  All he had to do was say the goddamned words."

"We'll fix it," Steve said automatically, though he had no idea how.  But that was what he did.  His friends, captured?  He'll take care of it.  He'll take care of Bucky too.  Because it's what Captain America does.  He _takes care of it_.

Except the last few days, he'd mostly just been making one hell of a mess.

"Steve, you gotta listen to me," Bucky implored.  The Brooklyn seeped into his words, and he sounded the most like Bucky that Steve had heard since that mask came off on the street two years ago.  "Maybe....I can't be fixed.  Maybe I'm just broken.  And....maybe it'd be better.  For everybody.  If I just...wasn't here..."

"To hell with that, _Buck!_ " Steve snapped, then winced at the way Bucky's eyes widened, his jaw tightened, like a kid used to abuse who saw more hard on the horizon.  He rubbed a hand hard over his face.  God, he was making a mess out of everything.

" _I_ wouldn't be better off.  And I'll be damned if I bury you and Peggy in the same week."  His voice cracked on the last word, and he swung back around in his seat to stare straight ahead, though not quite fast enough to miss Bucky's eyes going wide, in shock this time.

"I'm sorry, Stevie," Bucky whispered, the endearment slipping out like he didn't notice, and _that_ just sent a pang straight into Steve's heart in a way he couldn't even process right now.  "I didn't know."

"Don't you leave me, Buck," Steve whispered, feeling wetness on his cheeks.  "I can't...I can't lose everyone."

Vaguely, he heard Bucky unbuckling from his seat, and then strong arms were wrapping him up, one flesh-and-blood, one cold metal, but both Bucky, and Steve buried his face in Bucky's shoulder, and seventy years after he saw his Mama put in the ground, he let himself cry again in Bucky Barnes' arms.

"Alright, Stevie," Bucky murmured, and with his eyes closed and if not for the feel of metal, Steve could have sworn they were two innocent kids in a ramshackle apartment, a tiny spitfire letting his best friend wrap him up in his arms and cradle him like a little kid in a way he'd never have done if his heart wasn't breaking because Mama was gone.

"I'm here," Bucky kept whispering into his hair, flesh fingers carding gently through his hair, and Steve felt some part of himself settle, like a ship that'd been wandering adrift for years finally pull into port and drop anchor.  "I'm not goin' anywhere.  To the end of the line, 'member?"

The Brooklyn was so thick in Buck's voice right now, Steve wondered if he even realized it, and he just clung harder and sniffled and whispered, "to the end of the line."


End file.
